The Nazis at Buchenwald concentration camp did it. And so did serial killer Ed Gein. Now, Andrew Krasnow is making sculptures and lampshades out of human skin, all in the name of art:

His works include human skin lampshades – a direct response to the belief that similar items made from the skin of Holocaust victims were found at Buchenwald concentration camp.

Using skins from white men who donated their bodies to medical science, he has created freak versions of mundane items including flags, boots and maps of America – in effect using skin like leather. His work, he says, is a commentary on human cruelty and America's ethics and morality. [...]

Gallery owner Robert Devcic said Krasnow uses only white skin because much of the suffering in the Americas has been caused by white people. "He uses skin to make the point that suffering is universal," he said. "It is tanned using the same process that you'd use for an animal skin."

The concept seems very obvious to me: "Amerika Amerika. I turn away from thee." And WHY. I was just reading today, in the Guardian U.K., about an innocent man finally out of Guantanamo after 6 or 8 years, but permanently blind in one eye after an American guard (he'll probably never track down) gouged it out on command from a superior.

Rob @45 - "When people donate their bodies it is for the purposes of medical science not for some so-called artist to make an exhibition of."

Not so. There were 2 traveling exhibits using donated bodies - one in Vancouver BC, one in Seattle Wa - from two different groups - using real human bodies - skin and organs - donated to science. They were scientific exhibits, but one could also assert that they were artistic, creative renderings, among any number of other descriptors. That is, they weren't purely scientific exhibits, though they certainly could be used for that purpose.

The Vancouver exhibit - which I saw with my child (who was, and still is, very interested in science) - the bodies and organs are prepared using a technique called plastination, showing inner anatomical structures, and rendering the skin somewhat in appearance like dehydrated food you take camping, only over a much larger surface, of course, and very fibrous in appearance, long strands. Conveys the fibrous strength of the human body. The exhibition's developer is a German anatomist, Gunther von Hagens, who invented the plastination technique (to preserve bodies and body parts by removing water and fats) at the University of Heidelberg in the 1970's. The Canadian exhibit also included a section on the development of the human fetus, using real embryos and fetuses at various points of development, from donations that had spontaneously miscarried. (Acts of God as abortionist. Which circumvented objections to that issue.)

At which point, and back in Amerika, the controversy mostly surrounded the Seattle exhibit because some of the bodies had come from people who died in prison in China - and had not "given permission" in the sense that we give permission in the States, because there, if you go to prison, you automatically relinquish that right (and your family does too) should you die in prison.

The one that was in Seattle -http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html

The one that was in Vancouver BC http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/bodies.html

I had a friend who died on a liver list, and i recently read about a little boy who can't get on a heart transplant list without 1/2 million dollars down payment -- which is just to get on the list. In Amerika.

So it seems appropriate, from a certain perspective, and in the land claimed by virtue of European butchery of millions of Native Americans, that one could realistically and morally conceive of our nation, via a flag made of human skin, just like the Nazis did.

It seems that anything goes nowadays so long as it is in "the name of art". Does the exhibition of human skin lampshades and other items make Hitler an artist? How can we condemn what Hitler did to the remains of his victims but accept it when someone else does it in the name of art? When people donate their bodies it is for the purposes of medical science not for some so-called artist to make an exhibition of. Where does it all end? What about an "artist" committing murder and then displaying the body as art? Or someone's property being vandalised and the photograph of the incident displayed as art?